1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates generally to techniques of controlling physical devices in a resource via network, such as a network resource, a computational resource and/or a storage resource.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, a large-scale high-performance computational system can be built by interconnecting geographically dispersed computational resources and storage resources via high-speed network resources. Virtualization technologies abstract resources from physical devices so as to reflect differences between the physical devices. This allows physical properties of each physical device within a requested one of computational resources, storage resources and network resources (e.g., a CPU utilization, a memory size, a disc storage capacity, a communication bandwidth, etc.) to be assigned to different users.
FIG. 1 illustrates a computer grid system 110 architected by interconnecting geographically dispersed computational resources 100 and storage resources 102 via network resources 104. At each site, some of the computational resources 100 and some of the storage resources 102 together constitute a computer cluster or computer clusters 120. The network resources 104 help a network 200 to work.
In an example illustrated in FIG. 1, one of the network resources 104 is selected as an exemplary requested resource, and includes a plurality of controllable devices 5. A group of these devices 5 is enumerated as a group of an edge switch A 5a, a core switch A 5b, a router 5c, an edge switch B 5d, an edge switch 5f, and an edge switch 5g. These devices 5 are connected with a device-control unit 1.
The device-control unit 1 is configured to remotely control each device 5 to control requested resources. It is required for the requested resource to be reserved so as to prevent or eliminate undesirable delay, instability of bandwidth, and/or computational overburden during a communication session.
In an exemplary implementation, the device-control unit 1 controls each device 5, in response to a request issued from an operation client device 2 (e.g., a personal computer) which is manipulated by an operator for management. It is of course that the device-control unit 1 may alternatively control in response to a request issued from an SIP (Session Initiation Protocol) server.
This allows stabilized QoS (Quality of Service) control to be performed so as to guarantee an end-to-end communication quality, while a session has been established.
A relevant technique is disclosed in, for example, Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2002-051386, which is for controlling a plurality of controllable devices, by selecting a corresponding one of a plurality of device controller embedded within a device-control unit.
This technique allows control devices without updating internal programs for each device.
Another relevant technique is disclosed in, for example, Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2003-052092, which is for selecting one of a plurality of stored program components to control a device, according to a user request.